


A Kind of Magic

by Phoenicia



Category: Free!
Genre: (barely), Comedy, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism, Romance, SouRin Xmas Xchange 2015, silly hijinks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 11:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5539163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenicia/pseuds/Phoenicia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is strange magic afoot at Samezuka Gakuen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Kind of Magic

**Author's Note:**

> For [leninmeringuepie](http://leninmeringuepie.tumblr.com/). I became a fill-in when the original person dropped out and I really tried to pull something together that fit the original request (scifi and/or robots). However, when I realized that there was no way I had time to do it justice around my work and holiday schedule, I went for fun instead. I hope you enjoy it (and I still intend to write that scifi epic someday!).
> 
> Title courtesy of Queen and Freddy Mercury because reasons.

It’s a well-kept secret that not only does Samezuka Gakuen house one of the prefecture’s premiere swimming programs, but there are also in attendance a few ‘special’ students among the throngs of white-clad young men. These students are virtually impossible to distinguish from any others at first glance, but there is one important distinction between them and the rest of the student body.

These special students, you see, are _magical_.

* * *

_Magical_ is not the word Matsuoka Rin would use to describe his new roommate. Nitori Aiichirou is on the timid side, eager to please, a pathetic slob who displays backbone at the strangest of times. He cowers from Rin’s rage but nonetheless dogs his steps. ‘Masochist’ is a far better word for him than ‘magical’.

Rin is hardly a believer in anything when he arrives on campus. Numb, angry, volatile and self-loathing, there is no room in his life for anything magical. The relay he loves and hates is the closest brush to that world beyond reality’s borders, those precious moments when he truly showed his friends a sight they’d never seen. Almost as soon as it happens, the feeling is gone, left behind when he climbs on a bus and a plane to a faraway place called Australia, a place that is supposed to make all his dreams come true.

It doesn’t. It only brings separation and pain and failure and futility. Losing to Haru at winter break only cements those feelings, hardens Rin’s heart in a casing of concrete where no one can reach it, no one can enter it. He no longer needs teammates...or friends. Letters go unanswered. The only thing that matters is winning and competing, in putting the folly called ‘relay’ far behind him. Where it can no longer drag him down.

Where it can no longer hurt him.

Where it can no longer remind him of how close he came to touching his dad’s legacy in the sky, only to crash back to earth on melted Icarus wings.

Rin is wrong, however. For him, the relay is concentrated magic, a healing power that far surpasses any of the small charms and wishes and whispers sent his way by his well-meaning roommate. Nitori’s mother had warned him before entering Samezuka that being blessed with healing magic also means being cursed with the knowledge that not everything can be healed.

Nevertheless, despite his lack of success, Nitori still follows and supports his senpai’s path and finds that Matsuoka Rin possesses a little magic of his own when he changes Nitori’s name to ‘Ai’, invites him beyond acquaintance and annoyance into the realm of ‘friend’. He’d do most anything to help Rin.

Which is probably how he winds up with a bowing, groveling Matsuoka Rin in the room they used to share, the captain begging him to heal Yamazaki-senpai’s shoulder and swearing on Samezuka-chan’s holy feathers that he’ll never ask for anything ever again.

“Rin-senpai…” Nitori can’t deny that he’s thought of doing it, especially since he’s been ‘out’ to Rin after last year’s relay (and Momo comes from a magical family so there are no secrets in their room). There had been no way to do it at Regionals, healing takes time to properly craft, and as Yamazaki-senpai’s role shifted to coaching afterwards the subject never really came up. The third years retired, more or less, and all of them threw everything into passing the national exams. Spring is a faint breath of warmth in the air now, the swim team send-off just around the corner and a new captain soon to be named. Both of them will be gone all too soon.

“But it has to be done in secret! Sousuke can’t know.” Rin straightens up, wearing perhaps the most nervous, self-conscious look Nitori has ever seen from him. “Because he’s an idiot and he’ll think I only wanted this so we could swim together again. I don’t care if we never swim again, but I don’t want him to be in pain anymore. It hurts me when I see it, you know, because I can’t do anything about it.”

Nitori knows. Watching Rin’s self-destruction the year before had been painful, and never had Nitori felt so helpless despite his magic. And yet, there are some feelings that should never have magic to help them along. “...you’re in love with Yamazaki-senpai, aren’t you?” Nitori hears himself ask, a knowing smile curving his mouth.

Shock and desperation fill Rin’s eyes in the form of tears, his throat tightens up with a vicious wrench. If he is this transparent to Ai, how much more must he be to...to…? “...yeah,” he chokes out in a near-sob. “I think I have been most of my life, but it’s only this year that I realized it.”

“You should just tell him, then.” Nitori watches Yamazaki-senpai watching Rin-senpai often enough; to him, it’s quite obvious that Rin’s feelings are returned, but it isn’t his place to come out and _say_ that for certain. Rin shakes his head in denial, growing fiercer each time Nitori tries to gently prompt him. Finally, he sighs in defeat, casting a fond look up at Rin. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth, senpai. It will be tough, but I’ll find a way to help you somehow. Er, to help you help Yamazaki-senpai. But,” he amends, trying to find the best way to voice what’s on his mind, “there are others around the school who have stronger or better magic than me. Momo, for one, or any Mikoshiba. Why me?”

The answer comes to Rin without hesitation. “Because you were my first real friend at Samezuka. You didn’t give up when I was a complete ass to you. And you didn’t give up when you wanted to get into the relay; even when you probably could have done some magic to get better you just worked harder and harder. That’s the only type of person I’d trust with something this important.” He reaches over and ruffles Nitori’s silver hair, feeling tears threaten once again as it hits him: he’ll be graduating and having to leave Samezuka behind soon and he’s not sure he’s ready. “Thanks...for not laughing at a stupid normal like me, Ai.” Rin hastens out of the room and leaves the dorm for a quick run.

Nitori squares his spare shoulders, unable to tamp down the pride that of all the people on campus, Rin-senpai came to him. He can’t blame him for not wanting Momo, not after what everyone refers to as The Boomerang Incident. Which isn’t really Rin’s fault, he reminds himself; as a normal, Rin doesn’t understand much about magic, nor why turning magic like Mikoshiba Momotarou’s loose with a boomerang had been a Bad Idea.

Now, there’s just the matter of trying to concoct a healing potion to be administered to Yamazaki-senpai without Yamazaki-senpai’s knowledge. He feels so conflicted about that last part. Magic isn’t meant to be used in secret, it takes a good measure of its power from the will of the one being healed. But...could he make it cola-flavored and stick it inside a can…?

The door bangs open, one Yamazaki Sousuke looming tall and wide in the doorway. Nitori yelps, scampering backwards like a frightened rabbit. “Nitori,” he says without preamble. “We need to talk.”

* * *

The send-off is in the bag, Ai has been successfully named the new captain, and with cherry blossoms blooming outside the natatorium, Rin delivers his wish in the form of a prayer: _I’ll be waiting for you._ Surely Ai will come through; they agreed that delivering it via the pool might be the best way, and Sousuke is due to take one final Samezuka swim that afternoon.

 _Well, I’ll give it some thought,_ Sousuke replies, vast oceans in his eyes that speak tides of hope to Rin. This has to be the right thing to do, he tells himself. It has nothing to do with swimming, he tells himself.

Sousuke will have his shoulder back and everything will definitely be all right.

Sousuke leaves to go change and Ai emerges from the shadows, a vial of something purple in his hands. “Rin-senpai,” he greets, anxiety all over his pale face.

“Is that it?” Rin starts to reach for it before pulling back. “Wasn’t there a way to make it, er, pool-colored?” Ai’s flat stare tells him it’s time to shut his mouth about magical things. “So, we just dump this in the pool, he swims, and it cures his shoulder?”

“Actually…” Ai begins, nervously looking towards the locker room door, “I had a bit of a-...”

“Shit! He’s coming!” Rin hisses, grabbing the vial out of his kouhai’s hands and upending the contents into the pristine pool. Purple steam rises from it and pops like a bubble, disbursing into a faint grape fragrance.

“Senpai!” Ai moans, watching the water turn clear once more. “You don’t understand!”

Rin waves a hand in a shushing motion, tucking the vial inside his jacket as Sousuke walks out in his competition legskins, white and grey slashes curving around the black where it hugs his body. Sousuke doesn’t bother with a cap today, only a pair of greenish goggles that he fits over his eyes before diving in, sluicing underwater with all the giant grace of his whale shark moniker. He makes it nearly the length of the pool before surfacing to take a wide-mouthed breath.

 _So amazingly beautiful_ , Rin thinks, for once not caring if his face gives him away as he gazes at Sousuke, drinking in every stunning centimeter. In deference to his shoulder, he stretches his arms out in a lazy breaststroke. The fly is his true stroke, but even at his size he makes breast look elegant, raising and lowering with the water rather than fighting it. It’s not quite Haru’s natural grace, but Sousuke’s aura of tempered power, coiled and ready to strike at any time, is every bit as entrancing for Rin.

Sousuke swims two more lengths and pulls to a stop near Rin, sculpted arms showing no pain or hesitation as he hauls himself out of the pool and casts the goggles aside to bounce with a hollow plastic sound upon the tile. “Rin,” he says, coming closer and closer, stalking with a cat’s grace. He reaches one large hand towards Rin’s face, tracing a wet finger around his lips while Rin stands frozen. “I know you said you would wait for me, but is it too late to confess? I love you, shark breath…” Without hesitating, he seals those words with his lips on Rin’s, hot and moist and certain.

Rin squawks in surprise, trying to push back against Sousuke’s immovable shoulders and trying not to turn to absolute jelly. Where the hell did Sousuke learn to kiss like this? And why now? Why when he should be noticing the lack of pain and stiffness in his shoulder is he trying to devour Rin heart, soul, and tonsils?

He finally manages to separate Sousuke’s tongue from his mouth (and it’s _so_ not fair that Sousuke can pout that way) and get a step of distance between them. Only a step, because Sousuke’s arms are wrapping him with strength and determination. “Sousuke, go get a towel, you’re getting me all wet. I need to talk with Ai for a minute.”

Sousuke sighs, disappointment seeming to come all the way up from his toes. “Fine, but you can’t get out of answering me for long.” He trails one damp hand down Rin’s cheek, cupping it with such tenderness that Rin nearly melts into goo. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to confess to you?” He runs his thumb over Rin’s bottom lip, lingering until it aches before he pads away in a slap of mournful wet feet.

Rin watches him go, utterly mesmerized until he realizes Ai is shaking his arm with both hands. “What just happened here?”

“I tried to tell you!” Frantic, Ai sounds almost on the verge of tears. “I don’t think my potion came out right.”

“What? How??” Panic shoots sharp and chilling through Rin’s gut. “I don’t know shit about magic, Ai, how is this possible?”

“Well...ah...while I was stirring the spell, I kept thinking about what you said, about how you’re in love with Yamazaki-senpai.” The second-year starts wringing his hands in agitation. “And I...I...Imayhavemadealovepotioninstead!” He snaps down in his best ‘I have royally fucked up, please do not kill me’ bow.

Rin screeches like a startled bird, unable to comprehend the reality. Sousuke...just confessed to him...because of a damned _love potion!_ “I didn’t think that was even doable with magic.”

“Usually it’s n-not.” Ai still hasn’t risen and his voice grows more drippy and nasal. “But w-when the feelings are already there, it...it...can sort of be like a magnet. It a-a-attracts those feelings in the other p-person because they’re so s-strong in the giver. You put the potion in the water, so it made you the giver. It took your f-feelings and brought them out in…”

“Sousuke,” Rin finishes. “So instead of fixing his shoulder, I’ve now forced my feelings on him, regardless of how he may actually feel.” Ai nods fiercely, sniffling. “Get up,” Rin says, pushing against the younger boy’s shoulder. “You’ve got to help me fix the fruits of my stupidity. This is a temporary thing, right? It has to be. Nothing that smells that much like grape soda could possibly be permanent.”

“Actually…” Ai begins.

“WOO HOO! CANNONBALL CONTEST!” Momo’s rambunctious voice echoes across the natatorium as he and the rest of the team sprint out from the locker room, leaping in droves into the pool.

The _love potion_ pool.

Rin reaches out a hand and screams, helpless to stop them. In horror, he watches the entire team plunge in, all laughing and splashing and unaware of the fate their dip will cause. Sousuke trapped under magic’s sway is bad enough, but an entire _team_ professing love? That’s too much even for the most incurable romantic in Samezuka.

“Are you ready to answer me?” Sousuke suddenly purrs from behind him, using Rin’s distraction to sneak up and capture his prize. Long arms twine around Rin, snaring him close against a firm body before he can flee.

“I-I can’t.” The admission whuffs out of Rin along with all the breath in his lungs, leaving him limp in Sousuke’s grasp. “Because...this isn’t real. I...I did something awful to you. I went behind your back and asked Ai to fix your shoulder. Only...it turned into a love potion instead, so nothing you’re doing right now is because you really want to.”

Sousuke hums against Rin’s neck, pausing to lay a pair of kisses there. “Is that so?” he asks, voice quiet. Rin nods and Sousuke leaves behind another kiss.. “Then...why? Why would you be so worried about the state of my shoulder when I’ve told you I’m okay with how things turned out?”

“Because…” Rin straightens and turns to face him, there’s no way Sousuke deserves these words without eye contact. “Because I love you and I don’t want you to be in pain anymore.” Tears clog up his throat and burn his eyes, but somehow he manages not to look away, to let Sousuke have the full honesty of his gaze.

“When you say that…” Sousuke whispers, his voice falling another octave with ease, “I can almost believe you.”

 _Almost?_ Something about that jabs Rin’s pride and temper something fierce and he scowls through tears at Sousuke. “What do you mean, ‘almost’? You’re the one under the love potion here!”

“Actually....” Sousuke and Ai say in unison.

“There wasn’t any love potion,” Ai continues, managing to look apologetic and devious at the same time about the deception, down to the fake tears. He should never have introduced Ai to Nagisa, Rin thinks. “It was a mixture of grape juice and ginger ale, spelled to evaporate when it touched the water.” Rin stares open-mouthed at the two of them, unable to believe the depths of their betrayal. “Yamazaki-senpai overhead you talking with me, and he didn’t want healing done on his shoulder without his knowledge, so…”

“So we decided that the best way to cure you of soliciting well-meaning but meddling magical assistance was to change the stakes,” Sousuke finishes.

“Sousuke, you asshole!” Rin protests, shoving Sousuke’s good shoulder and bristling with affront. “You lied and you let me confess and make a fool of myself!” His voice keeps going up in volume, but Rin doesn’t care, not when frustrated, angry tears are trickling down his face.  “You said things you didn’t mean, things you knew I wanted to hear in the way you said them!”

At that, Sousuke looks down and fidgets, his big hands clasped together as if _he’s_ the nervous one. “I didn’t lie, and I don’t say things like that if I don’t mean them.” His eyes drift back up to capture Rin’s with wide-open honesty. “Especially not if it will make you cry.”

Rin gasps, shaking his head so hard silver tear trails fly off his face. It can’t be real, Sousuke can’t _mean_ what he said, things like that don’t happen to Matsuoka Rin, king of the hopeless (emphasis on hopeless) romantics. “You don’t...you don’t....” he sputters in denial.

Sousuke sighs, deep and infinitely fond. “You are such a slow learner sometimes, Red.” With that, he fits his mouth to Rin’s, devouring him once more until he feels Rin’s knees go weak. Chuckling, Sousuke fits his right arm under Rin’s and lifts him to hold against his chest, Rin’s toes dangling a scant few centimeters from the ground.

“Sousuke!” Rin mumbles as best he can against Sousuke’s teeth. “Put me down...your shoulder…” He pushes against Sousuke’s chest, fearful of the damage already caused.

“Didn’t I mention it?” Sousuke steals a kiss to still Rin’s protests but nonetheless returns him to his own legs. “It’s already been fixed for a week.” Rin gapes like a fish and Sousuke nudges his mouth closed, chuckling affectionately. “I wasn’t opposed to it, just to it being decided for me. Nitori and the Mikoshibas worked on it together. Apparently a healer can draw on the power of stronger magic to fuel their own craft.” He shifts them so Nitori is in their line of sight. The future captain has his hands clasped behind his back, looking back at them with both pride and wonder. “You’re leaving Samezuka in some very capable hands, Rin. He’ll take care of them, just like you asked.”

One of Sousuke’s large hands makes a soothing path up and down Rin’s back, savoring the play of curve and muscle beneath his palm. “So do you think you could answer me now?” he asks, hoping it doesn’t sound as needy out loud as it does in his head.

Rin turns his perfect shark smile up to Sousuke, beaming brighter than the sun. “Yes!” he shouts, throwing himself towards Sousuke. A healed shoulder doesn’t mean perfect balance and the two of them tumble gracelessly into the pool. They splash and come up for air to the sound of thunderous applause from the entire Samezuka swim team, several cheers, and a number of ‘I told you so!’ declarations. “Kiss him!” someone shouts, and when the team takes up the chant, well, who are Rin and Sousuke to refuse?

It is perhaps a nontraditional interpretation of a Samezuka sendoff, but in time it becomes the stuff of legend.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, yes, I'm a big fan of RinTori friendship because no one else reached out to Rin at Samezuka the way he did. And I couldn't resist the idea of Nitori having magic of some kind.


End file.
